Dudley's Little Girl
by Aphrodite's Apples
Summary: Everything is going quite well when Harry Potter receives a letter by Muggle Post. After years of separation Dudley Dursley wants to get back in touch, and Harry can't help but feel that there is something else going on, something strange.
1. Chapter 1

The letter arrived by post, which by itself was noteworthy in home where the post was delivered by a litany of owls or varying sizes and hues. Harry Potter's youngest child, a little red haired girl with rosy cheeks had toddled over during morning toast gumming it enthusiastically. The girl's mother whisked it out of her mouth and dabbed the lingering drool off with a corner of her apron, staring at it with a quizzical expression.

"What on earth is this?" Ginny asked, pushing strands of her longs red hair out of her face and handing the letter to her husband. "It has your name on it, but who do we know who would use the muggle post?" Harry looked up from his coffee and took the offered letter, a few long moments passed before Ginny put a hand on his shoulder. "Well, who sent it?"

"Dudley Dursley." For a moment there was silence in the house, then little Lilly burbled happily as she found something new to gum. Ginny stood and swept Lilly in her arms.

"Why don't we go play in the garden with your brothers and your cousins, your daddy has an important letter to read."

Harry hardly noticed. He slowly opened the letter, thinking of the last time he had seen the Dursley's. Dudley had acted rather odd, had been saddened by their parting, it had all been rather strange, but with so much going on at the time and somehow in all the years since Harry hadn't thought much about it. It suddenly occurred to him that the whining bullying stupid fat cousin of his memory must have grown. It was strange to think of Dudley as a grown man. Running a hand through his tousled black hair he read the letter.

Dear Harry,

How many years has it been? Too many really, I'm married now, with a tyke of my own and a little house in Surry. I got it in my head to look you up, well imagine my surprise when I found you in the yellow pages! Didn't think you'd set much store by the yellow pages what with you being what you are and all. You must think it's strange that I'm writing you after all these years, and after all we never got on very well as kids did we? I hope that since we are after all still related you might not say no to stopping by some time, anytime really.

Hoping you're well,

Dudley Dursley

After reading the letter at least a dozen times through Harry stood and rubbing his head walked out into the garden. His face broke into a relaxed smile as he watched his family playing so happily. He waved at Hermione who was watering the flowers in a large sunhat and sat next to his wife and tickled his little girl who was very happily blowing spit bubbles.

"He wants me to visit him." He said, answering her unasked question. "I can't imagine why, but it sounds like there's a reason he's not telling me."

"What do you mean?" She asked, sending Lilly toddling off to play.

"I don't know, just a feeling, I'm probably wrong. These days I seem to be jumping at shadows."

"Now Harry, that's not fair, you spent so many years fighting real shadows after all, I suspect that sending your godson off to school this year is just bringing back memories of your first year. Because of what you did none of our children will likely ever have so face anything like that. Relax." She kissed him on the forehead. "If you feel like going to visit Dudley I see no reason why shouldn't. Go now in fact, you have the day off, Ron won't be back until dinner at least, and Hermione and I can more than manage the kids for a day." Harry smiled and kissed Ginny's cheek.

"I think I will, it will bother me if I don't, I'll take the car, been years since I've been for a drive anyway. I'll be sure to be back by dinner." With that he hurried off, glad he had donned jeans that morning, since he had always felt foolish changing in the middle of the day. As he pulled out of his driveway he tapped his wand on the GPS, which immediately came up with the directions to Dudley's home, and he settled back into his seat, trying to shake off the feeling that something strange was going on.

When Harry reached the little house in Surry he found himself surprised that it looked nothing like number four privet drive, and equally surprised that he thought it would. He stood leaning on the car, trying to shake these thoughts out of his head, trying to calm the rush of memories that had suddenly come flooding unbidden into his mind.

"Harry?" A deep voice asked, he turned to find himself looking at a man who looked only vaguely like the bad tempered fat kid of his memory. The man who stood in front of him was indeed large, but really just tall with broad shoulders and a square chin that must have spent years hiding beneath all those round wobbly ones, but something in the blue eyes was undeniably Dudley Dursley. "My God, is that really you?" He said. Harry smiled tightly.

"I got your letter, would have called first but I don't own a telephone and sending an owl didn't seem appropriate somehow." To his surprise Dudley laughed a great booming laugh that was nothing like the simpering snicker that he remembered. Harry sought to keep up with the moment and not let the memories lay him flat.

"Would have scared my poor wife witless; a great ruddy owl!" Harry broke into an easy laughter. "'Course it might have made things a bit easier as well, but well, all that can wait. Come in, meet my Molly, she's just lovely as anything just wait 'till you see her! What about you Harry, are you married?" Harry let himself be swept into the neat little house.

"Yes, her names Ginny, I met her at school, we've got four kids, well three really and one godson but we've helped raise him since he was born, so he's ours just the same."

Dudley called to his wife as they walked through the door, and the woman who met them in the entry was indeed lovely. She was wearing a plain white apron with cooking stains and a pair of jeans with a t-shirt and kept her curly dark hair in pigtails. As she waved a spatula at him and introduced herself Harry couldn't stop himself from thinking that Aunt Petunia must loathe her. "You must be Harry of course." She added as Harry opened his mouth. "Dudley's told me you might be stopping by."

"Indeed?" Harry asked, trying not to gape at this as he shook her hand.

"We weren't expecting company and actually our Julie is sound asleep in the kitchen, I'll just go wake her up."

"She's the spitting image of her mother, you'll see, just six years old and already just as pretty as anything." Harry smiled and nodded, but felt for his wand in his pocket. He felt magic going on, but he told himself it was impossible and just his nerves getting to him again, and forced a couple deep breaths.

Because of this he was a couple of steps behind following Dudley into the kitchen, and was standing just in the doorway when he heard a soft "Oh bugger." He followed Dudley's gaze to four battered china dishes that were gently floating near the ceiling. A small girl who looked to be about six years old sat beneath them sound asleep. Molly didn't take her gaze from the dishes but muttered, "Oh good, you see it too then." under her breath.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry pulled his wand from his pocket and quickly flicked it at the dishes which floated down and stacked themselves neatly on the table. Dudley turned as Harry pulled his shirt back down over his pocket, but his quick eyes took in the handle of his wand. He swallowed hard.

"Julie, she… she's like you isn't she?" Dudley asked; his voice a forced calm. Harry just stared at him, his thoughts derailed. "I walked in to tuck her in at night a few weeks ago and her doll was floating, bouncing on the ceiling, just like Aunt Marge. That's all I could think of, but nothing else happened and I thought I must have imagined it, but I didn't, did I? Sometimes strange things happen around her, once she got a hold of a pair of scissors and cut her dollies hair, she was just as sad as anything but then suddenly the dolls hair had grown back, like it was never cut, but I still had the cut bits in my pocket. More strange things have been happening lately, guess that's why I wanted to contact you, I started thinking that she might be like you." Molly just watched them, her eyes wide.

"What on earth is going on? Please tell me what happened, tell me how Julie could possibly have done what she just did, and don't you dare tell me I didn't see it because I did!" Her voice got loud enough to wake Julie, who blinked bleary eyed at them a minute before she realized there was someone she didn't know. Harry ran a hand through his hair. At least he had figured out why Dudley had wanted to see him.

"Julie, this is Harry." Dudley said, trying to calm his near hysterical wife. "He's my cousin, so I guess that makes him your uncle, or close enough anyway." Julie smiled but looked at him critically.

"Grandma 'Tunia told me you were dead." She said.

"Just wishful thinking on her part I'm afraid." Harry told her smiling. Julie seemed to think that this was an acceptable answer and smiled as well. "Tell me Julie, how old are you?" He asked

"I'm six years old. Why?" She asked watching him carefully.

"Oh, just wondering. I expect that when you turn eleven you'll be getting a very important letter." He answered, giving Dudley a meaningful look.

"Good lord, really?" Dudley asked "The same letter you got? When father nailed the mail slot shut and we went to live in that little rock in the ocean? That letter?" Harry nodded.

"I expect so."

"What's going on?" Molly asked, exasperated "One of you tell me what you're talking about!" Dudley looked apologetic and somehow managed to look small as well.

"Well, Harry, could you explain, I mean you know more about it than I do obviously." Harry's mouth opened, and shut, and opened again. Eyes wandering back and forth between the members of the family, finally settling on Molly.

"How much has Dudley told you about me?" He asked, leaning back against the wall, forcing a casualness he didn't feel.

"Not a lot really, Dudley mentioned growing up with a cousin, but didn't say much about it. When he mentioned your name at Julie's fifth birthday Petunia just about choked to death on her tea." A faint smile tugged at one of her lips, an expression that endeared her to Harry in an instant. "I asked Dudley about it later, I thought that maybe no one talked about you because something terrible happened, but he just said that you were different, but not bad, and hopefully not dead." Dudley shifted uncomfortably as Harry's eyes widened, as if trying to take in all the unimagined years of Dudley's life at once.

"Different is as good a place to start as any I suppose. I lived with the Dursley's since I was an infant, my parents were murdered, and Aunt Petunia was my mother's sister, my only living relative. When I was young sometimes strange things would happen around me. My hair would grow back in a night after being chopped off, I'd be running away from something and suddenly find myself on the school roof without any memory of climbing. For Dudley's eleventh birthday he got to go to the zoo, and I got to tag along, I suddenly found myself talking to this python about Burma, and when Dudley pushed me to get a better look suddenly the glass disappeared and he fell right into the snake's enclosure." Dudley laughed, rather to Harry's surprise.

"That was great, everyone at school was so impressed that I had fought off this monster python, everyone thought I was so cool. Bunch of guys even thought I punched out the glass myself and then jumped in." He laughed again… but slowly stopped a strange sad sort of look came over his face. "Wasn't so great for you though, yeah?" He asked, his head turned a little down, but looking Harry in the eyes. "You were locked in the broom cupboard for weeks after that." Molly, who had followed the conversation like someone watching an illusionist, looking carefully for the trick so that it won't surprise, faltered.

"Broom cupboard?" She asked, her voice small, but not altogether disbelieving (clearly spent time around the Dursley's Harry thought, a lick of dark humor rising). Harry chuckled a bit, passing a hand through his hair.

"Sounds a bit dire, doesn't it? It wasn't all that bad really. It would have been I guess, but then I turned eleven." Harry's smiling eyes turned to Julie who was sitting at the table, listening with rapt attention. He stealthily pulled his wand from his pocket and from behind his back waved it with a practiced motion. "Here you go Julie; I thought you might like this." Harry said, pulling a rag doll from behind his back.

"Brilliant!" Julie squeaked, jumping up from the table, face flushed with excitement, she ran from the room to introduce her new doll to her others, chattering happily about a tea party. Harry turned his attention to Molly.

"It turned out, that all those things that kept happening around me, I was causing. It turned out that I was much more special than dear old aunt Petunia wanted me to believe. Watch." Harry reached into his pocket, and with a smirk sent the dishes juggling through the air, whizzing through the kitchen in stunning feats of acrobatics, and when two looked as though they would crash, they simply passed through one another unharmed, twisting away into the kitchen. Then the plates stacked themselves neatly and floated down slowly onto the counter where they had been before.

"James used to love it when I did that, he -" Harry faltered as Dudley ran to catch his wife from falling. "Right, I suppose that must have been a bit startling. Sorry. Er- the short version of the story is that I'm a wizard, I found out when I was eleven, and went away to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I learned to do magic there, just like your Julie will in a few years."

"Magic? My Julie? You're telling me that my little Julie can actually do magic?" Molly asked tuning a little pale, but with the barest hint of a smile around her lips.

"It's true what he's saying." Dudley told his wife, who had sat down at the kitchen table. "He used to come home every summer with this big trunk full of robes and spell books and he had this big white owl so he could send letters to his friends from school. It was all pretty brilliant." Harry, felt himself freeze a bit again, seeing things from Dudley's point of view felt like trying to see through a bent straw, and he felt himself bending to try and fit in this new world view. How could Dudley ever have been jealous of him when he had gotten everything he ever wanted?

"That's right." Harry added, trying to force himself back into the current stream of time. "I only came back for the summers, but they take off all the regular holidays too, it's just like a boarding school, except for the curriculum of course."

"I didn't know that." Dudley said slowly. "I thought you could only come home for the summers. Mum said your lot didn't celebrate Christmas and all."

"Er- I never came back because I wasn't welcome back, didn't really want to come either when you get down to it. Hogwarts was more of a home to me than Privet Drive ever was."

"Yeah, I guess it was. I know I never made things any easier. Changed my life that day you saved me. I was always such a prat to you, but you helped me anyway, even though I really didn't deserve it. I tried harder after that, to try and be the kind of person who would deserve to be saved. Hardly saw you after that though, and then we moved and you just disappeared. Never believed you were dead though, for what it's worth."

"It was never you Dudley; I don't believe you ever would have bullied me if Uncle Vernon hadn't always told you it was okay. Hell, he used to laugh like anything when you'd chase me about, and the fault is his for doing that to both of us."

"I never really thought about it like that."

"Well it doesn't really matter anyway does it? It's all in the past now. We're not kids anymore after all." Dudley opened his mouth to reply when the doorbell rang and his attention shifted.

"Not expecting anyone." He muttered, and looking at his wife who sat slumped in a kitchen chair still looking a bit pale (but with a bit of a smile as well)and he added, "I'll just go and get that."

Harry turned to Molly, who looked up at him a moment before saying quietly, "Different but not bad". Suddenly catching herself and looking a bit embarrassed as she stood. "I'm so terribly sorry, I haven't been a very good hostess have I; would you like a cup of tea?"

However she hadn't even finished talking before Dudley's startled yelp echoed from the front door. "Mum, Dad? What are you doing here?"


	3. Chapter 3

Authors Note: Sorry this is taking forever to write, I'm pretty busy and this story just kind of started and I didn't have any real plans for it. Thanks to all of my reviewers and readers, I'm astounded at the response that this story has gotten and I shall try to add a new chapter every week or so and I'll try to keep it interesting. Cheers.

"There's my little Julie!" A high voice echoed from the front room, and Harry felt himself draw away from the kitchen door, surprised at how his heart was racing.

Molly had gotten up and was wiping her hands on her apron and grumbling when she looked up again at Harry.

"Are you all right?" She asked.

"I don't know." He said, gripping his wand tightly and trying hard not to move farther away from the kitchen door. Vernon's loud laughter rang though the house and he felt like he was ten years old again. "I've got to go, please don't say anything about my being here, I'd rather they thought I was dead I think."

Molly's expression softened and she reached out and touched him on the shoulder. It was then that they heard Vernon shout from the front room; "whose car is that in the driveway?" Harry felt as if his heart had stopped. "Well it's not very nice is it, defiantly an older model, and it looks like it's got quite a few miles on it too."

"Bollocks" Harry said, "I forgot I bloody drove here."

"Don't worry about it." Molly said, "I'll take care of this, just stay in here alright?"

She didn't give him a chance to respond as she whisked herself out into the front room. Harry tried to calm down and listened by the kitchen door.

"Petunia, Vernon, we weren't expecting you, what a nice surprise." Molly said.

"Yes," Dudley said breathlessly, "that's just what I was saying."

"Ah yes," Vernon said, "we are on our way to London for a flower show, I won tickets at the office."

"We were just about to have dinner," Molly said, "I'm making spaghetti, won't you stay and have some?"

"No, no we really must be getting on, can't waste the light you know." Vernon said gruffly, and a minute later Harry heard the door shut behind them.

Molly was laughing as she walked back into the kitchen.

"Really dear," Dudley said, trying not to laugh as he held Julie in his arms, "one of these days we'll have to tell them you're not actually a terrible cook."

"Why would we do that? All I have to do is mention my cooking and they run out of here as fast as they can. I wouldn't give that up for anything."

They laughed together, and Julie stared at Harry as she sucked her thumb thoughtfully.

"Tea, Harry?" Molly asked.

"Yes, thank you that would be lovely."

"So Harry," Dudley asked, gesturing for Harry to sit at the table as he took a seat himself and let Julie skip out of the kitchen, "how have you been, you said you've got a wife and kids now?"

"Yes, my wife Ginny and four kids, the oldest is just eleven, he's actually my godson but Ginny and I have raised him, he'll be starting Hogwarts in the fall."

"So are all your kids like you then?" He asked.

"Witches and wizards you mean? Yes, well we don't really know about Lily, our youngest, yet but she's only three and that's not unusual. I would guess that before long she's levitating her favorite toys at her poor mothers head. Magic runs strongly in her family."

"So," Molly said, taking a seat at the table and pouring tea, "it works like that then? Magic, I mean. It's inherited?"

"Sort of," Harry said, "Mostly, but not always, sometimes an entirely muggle family will have a son or daughter that's a witch or wizard and no one really knows why. One of best friends has muggle parents, and she's a witch and an incredible one at that. My mother was like that too, I think she was the first witch in the family."

"Muggle?" Molly asked.

"Non-magical people like us." Dudley told her, much to Harry's surprise.

"Yes," he said, "and sometimes a witch and wizard will both come from long standing magical families and have a child without powers. No one really knows why those kinds of things happen, but mostly magic runs in families."

"Is that why Julie can use magic then?" Dudley asked.

"I'm not sure, I mean my mother was a witch, but I've never heard about anyone else in our family using magic, although it's possible."

"So what do you do," Molly asked, "I mean, being a wizard and all, it's not exactly like a normal job is it?"

"More so than you would expect I think." Harry said, feeling himself smile again. There was something about Molly's open nature that he liked. "I used to work at the Ministry of Magic as an auror, that's someone who captures dark wizards and witches that are misusing their magic, but now I mostly teach other wizards and witches how to be aurors. It's a surprising amount of paperwork and I spend more of my time at my desk than teaching or in the field."

"So it's kind of like police officers then, but with magic?" Molly asked.

"It's something like that that, yes." Harry said. "What about you Dudley, what is it that you do now?"

"I coach football and wrestling at the high school. It doesn't pay much, but I really like it." He said, Molly smiled at him and patted him arm affectionately.

"What about you Molly?" Harry asked

"I used to be a software engineer, but now I just do some free-lance programming when I have the time, mostly I take care of Julie which is a job and half."

"Software engineer," Harry repeated, "that's something to do with… what's the word… computers, right?" Molly's jaw dropped.

"You don't use computers?" She said "How is that even possible, everything is done on computers these days."

"Computers don't work around any concentration of magic; neither does any kind of technology. My friend Hermione wrote a paper about that once, something about how magic works on a wave frequency that causes electricity to repolarize and there might have been something about rust due to temporary time distortion created by magic fields, but I never really understood it."

"Don't you use e-mail?" She asked.

"What's e-mail?"

"Electronic mail, so you still send letters by post?"

"Oh no, we don't use the post, it's too slow, we use owls mostly."

"Owls… like owls that fly?" She looked at Dudley, obviously trying to confirm that she wasn't being jerked around.

"I told you he had an owl, big white one." Dudley said.

"Right," Molly said "owls that carry letters."

"And we use the floo network if it's something that can't wait."

"Is that when people showed up in the fireplace and blew up the living room?" Dudley asked.

"Yeah, Mr. Weasley got privet drive connected to the floo network for a night."

"That's when I ate that piece of candy that I was allergic to and I nearly died choking on my own tongue."

"Actually you weren't allergic, it was a practical joke, Fred and George made magical candies that did different things they thought were funny. The best one made the person who ate it burst out into yellow feathers."

"Really," Dudley asked "so it was magic? I thought you had to use your wand for magic to work."

"Mostly that's true, but there are potions and things that are created magically that don't need more magic to work."

"So Julie will learn all that?" Molly asked.

"Of course, as soon as she starts at Hogwarts." Harry said.

"But that won't be until she's eleven, right?" Molly asked again, obviously making an effort to keep up and not let the moment run her flat.

"Right, a student doesn't enter Hogwarts until they're eleven; it's really the youngest that any witch or wizard can use their powers safely. Giving a wand to a child under ten is a recipe for disaster, trust me, James got a hold of his mother's wand once and turned a twenty square foot section of our backyard entirely into licorice. We were able to get rid of it, but the lawn has never looked the same again."

"Licorice… yes… I'll watch out for that…" Molly began to laugh, a high rich laugh that seemed to fill the room, Harry couldn't help smiling in response. He was glad that Dudley had found someone so lighthearted and warm, he couldn't help liking her.

"Speaking of home, I should be getting back." Harry said when Molly had got her laughter under control.

"Oh, right, mum and dad said they'd be back after the flower show anyway." Dudley said, standing up. "You'll come back though, right?" He asked.

"I'll be watching the kids tomorrow afternoon so Ginny can get out of the house for a while, why don't you come over and bring Julie. You'll get a better sense of the magical world that way." Harry said.

"All right," Molly agreed, "that sounds wonderful."

Harry wrote them directions and waved goodbye and got into his car and drove home, thinking about how much one day could change everything.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Okay, I know super long hiatus. Sorry about that. I'll try not to take such long breaks between writing in the future, but I make no promises. Thanks for sticking with me so far!

Ginny was wiping down the large wooden table in the living room again as Harry walked in from the yard. There was a little crease in her forehead that told him she was worried.

"Ginny, you've done that table twice already. It's clean, I promise." He said, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"You could have given me a bit more notice you know. Maybe I should stay home and help, after all the kids can be a bit of a handful and having company and all is going to be a lot of work, and after all it is your cousin."

"Breathe dear." Harry said chuckling. "It won't be a problem, Ron will be around to help with the kids and I'm perfectly capable of making tea and serving biscuits. You deserve a day off, go shopping with Hermione and have a lovely day." Ginny smiled tightly, taking off her apron and folding it carefully. "Everything will be fine. Cross my heart."

"If you need anything, anything at all, Hermione has that… oh what is it… cell phone. It doesn't work unless you are down the drive past the big elm, but if you need me for anything, or if the kids are being rambunctious and you need a break or something you call me, alright?" Harry smiled.

"Of course." He said, thinking about all the ways their lives had changed since they had kids.

Ginny was repining her long hair when they heard a car crunching up the gravel drive.

"That'll be them." Harry said, suddenly casting a nervous glance around their home and straightening the simple black robe he had decided to wear over his jeans.

"It'll be fine," Ginny told him, patting his arm and kissing his cheek "James and Al are still happy playing out back chasing garden gnomes, so don't worry and go answer the door."

Harry took a large breath and crossed the living room in a few long strides and opened the door. Dudley was standing by his car, looking somewhat bewildered as he looked around the grounds. Molly had Julie by the hand and was looking around as well.

"Good morning!" Harry called, walking out to meet them.

"Morning." Dudley muttered distractedly. "This wasn't here a week ago. A week ago I drove out here with the wrestling team for a match at the local school and I swear this wasn't here."

"Right, well that's because these grounds have a few charms on them to keep people from taking too much notice. It wouldn't do for muggles to wander up here trying to sell raffle tickets or some such and see Hermione out watering the dirigible plums."

"Dirigible…?" Molly started slowly.

"Plums." Harry finished. "They're one of those odd things that grow with too much background magic in the environment. Hermione was thinking about doing some experiments with them, but really we just have them because the plants were a housewarming gift from a friend of ours."

Dudley and Molly stared blankly at him for a few moments before Julie started squirming.

"Why don't you come in, I know it must be a lot to take in at once, but a cup of tea might help." Harry told them, smiling, but thinking that perhaps this was a terrible idea after all.

When they got to the door Lilly toddled out to meet them, and Harry scooped her up enthusiastically as she giggled happily in his arms.

"This is Lilly, our youngest." Harry explained. "She's only just turned three."

Molly's face softened as she watched them. "She's beautiful."

"Thanks." Harry said, feeling more confident with Lilly in his arms. "This is my wife, Ginny." Ginny stepped out of the house, looking lovely in the late summer sun. She smiled and shook their hands, all traces of nervousness washed from her face.

"Welcome to our home," she said, "I'm sorry that I can't stay, but I've plans in the city."

"Harry told us you wouldn't be able to stay," Molly said "but it's very nice to meet you."

"Likewise," Ginny said, "you must come over again sometime, Harry told me that your Julie is a witch, and if you'd like a few tips on how to deal with her figuring out her magical powers I'd be happy to help." Molly looked relieved, and nodded warmly.

"I would love that, thank you." She said.

"Hello, all!" Hermione called, walking over from her home next door. "Ready to go, Ginny?" Ginny nodded. "Hello, nice to meet you, I'm Hermione and you must be Dudley." She said, looking him over with an academic interest that made Dudley shuffle his feet a bit.

"Er, right, that's me. This is my wife Molly and our daughter Julie." He said, looking a bit nervous. Julie was standing beside her mother, looking thoughtfully around at all these strange new adults. Hermione winked at her and smiled.

"Harry, Ron's still in the house trying to get Hugo to play quietly while Rosie takes her nap, but they should be out in a little while." She said in an exasperated kind of way, but there was a light in her eyes that left no doubt as to how deeply she loved her family.

"We'll be back by dinner time, I'm sure." Ginny said as she and Hermione stepped down the road a few paces and clasped hands. She waved goodbye and then they disapparated. Molly gasped.

"They just disappeared." She said, pointing to the spot where they had been standing. Harry smiled.

"Yeah, it took me a while to get used to that too. It's difficult at first, but it's so much faster than driving." Harry said, resettling Lily on his hip and inviting them inside with a gesture.

"You have a lovely home." Molly said, trying to maintain some sense of normalcy in this visit.

"Thank you, would you like a cup of tea?" They both nodded as they looked around the house. "I'll just get the kettle on and introduce you to my sons, they're playing out back." With that he pulled out his wand and lit the fire under the kettle and walked outside.

"James, Al, I want you to come inside and meet some people." They looked up from hole they had been digging guiltily. "Come inside, and after you say hello you will come right back out here and try to fix that so that your mother won't know what you were doing to the lawn." The boys quickly got up and tried to smear their dirty hands on their pants to clean them as they walked into the house

"These are my boys," Harry said, clapping a hand on James' shoulder as Al peeked at the strangers from behind him. "This is James, he's eight, and Al, he's six. Boys, I'd like you to meet my cousin Dudley, his wife Molly, and their daughter Julie. Julie is your age Al." The children looked at each other with interest.

"Want to play with us?" James asked. "We were catching garden gnomes and then having them race each other. You can play too if you want." Julie nodded happily and they ran out together.

"Garden gnomes? Like the painted ones in Petunia's garden?" Molly asked

"Oh, no, these are real little gnomes. They're real pests and make a mess of gardens, we keep trying to get rid of them, but Ginny and Hermione both have kind of a soft spot for them. Besides, the children like them." Harry poured three glasses of tea from the kettle. "Why don't we go outside so we can keep an eye on the kids?"

They sat in silence a while, watching the children run around the yard giggling happily. Harry drank his tea and tried to absorb the absurdity of the situation. It was still hard to believe that Dudley had grown into someone so different from the cousin of his memories. His thoughts lingered on the beatings that Dudley and his gang of pathetic cronies had given him. How many times had he had to tape his glasses where they had been broken? How many bruises had he nursed, alone and afraid in that little cupboard under the stairs?

He remembered once when he was still in the muggle school when his teacher had taken him aside one day after school. This man had noticed how the other children picked on him, and made a sincere effort to make life better for him. It even worked for a time. Then this teacher had made the mistake of bringing in Petunia and Vernon Dursley. Harry could still remember the way his stomach had seemed leap into his mouth and choke him when he saw them sitting with his teacher. Petunia had her lips pursed to hard that they had turned white and Vernon had somehow maintained a smile while at the same time turning a horrible blotted shade of red and purple.

They locked him in the cupboard for three days without food for that. They were infuriated that he would spread lies to the teachers about Dudley who was, of course, perfect beyond all reckoning. When he was allowed to go back to school he kept clear of that teacher, and ignored his looks of concern. Vernon and Petunia had kicked up a fuss about that teacher among the parents and he had barely managed to keep his job. After that he gave Harry a wide berth, as if he had some sort of horrible, contagious disease.

He knew that it wasn't really Dudley's fault, but it was hard to face all of those memories and not attach some blame to him. Harry shook himself mentally and took another drink of tea. Dudley was a different person now. He had grown up, matured, changed. He was not the same wobbly chinned bully that had made Harry's life a living hell. It was different now.

Harry watched the children tumble around the lawn and smiled. It was very different now.


End file.
